“Condé Nast,” the attachment reads, “has a long history of supporting cartoonists with revenue-generating opportunities through both editorial and licensing.” The line carried a tinge of irony for many New Yorker cartoonists. Almost a decade ago, these artists—freelancers who face stiff competition for 15 slots each week in the print magazine—could count on licensing deals for substantial passive income. Some received monthly checks as high as $8,000; others regularly saw one or two thousand dollars. Today, even those who saw the highest royalties receive only a few hundred dollars per month.

The market for content, especially humor, has evolved considerably in that decade, with creators of every stripe earning less than they might have in the past. But this decline, according to the accounts of current cartoonists and former longtime Cartoon Editor Bob Mankoff, appears strikingly connected to one factor in particular: Condé Nast’s acquisition and slow dismantling of their primary source of licensing revenue, the Cartoon Bank.

Earlier today I was bemoaning the need for investigative journalism in comics, and this piece shows why. It’s a fantastic story that spotlights former New Yorker Cartoon Editor Robert Mankoff’s vision in creating the Cartoon Bank in the first place, and Conde Nast’s corporate frittering of it all away. I guess print may be dead, but a big place like Condé Nast still has a bottom line big enough to ignore a few million in revenue. Which is alarming in and of itself.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of the Cartoon Bank’s decline, as any cartoonist will tell you, is its website. When I began researching this story, there was no clear end-to-end way to license a cartoon online. After going through several steps to select a cartoon and format—in my case, a one-year Powerpoint license for $10—I would encounter a dialog telling me I could not check out via invoice because my cart was below $500. Instead I would have to submit a detailed request via email. When I tried again last week, a button had appeared allowing me to pay by credit card. This option was only available for a small number of license types, though; most still require submitting an email request. (Additionally, one cartoonist I spoke with said the credit card button did not appear in his browser.) And even when I clicked the button to pay by credit card, I encountered a popup informing me that I could not pay by invoice, instructing me instead to submit an email request. Had I not clicked through the popup, I would not have reached the payment screen.

This article has numbers a plenty for those of you keeping score:

New Yorker cartoonists are paid in two tiers. More established artists receive $1,450 for a cartoon, while the rest receive $700. The sales of original artwork bring cartoonists some of their largest one-time payments, often as high as $2,000 or more. Until January 2017, sales made through the Cartoon Bank were split 70-30 between cartoonists and Condé Nast. In December, cartoonists were sent a contract revising that split to 50-50. Condé Nast also recently stopped warehousing original artwork, leaving that responsibility to the cartoonists themselves. “They just, like, fired all their archivists,” said one cartoonist. “There was no place to put it. People who were trying to reclaim their archived cartoons were being told that they had been lost. So now we’re at a place where it’s just, ‘Make your own high-res scan at home, email in the high-res and that’s what we’re going to run in the magazine. You’re responsible for storing and archiving your own artwork. We will let you know if a collector wants to buy your cartoon.’”

The New Yorker is nearly the very last bastion of the print world for illustrators; covers, illustrations and cartoons are still a prestige job there, and pay well. That Mankoff found a way to move this old school legacy profitably into the modern digital world – and Condé Nast found a way to fritter that progress away, is depressing as heck.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

§ This column has been absent for the usual reasons, a big deadline on an outside project, travel and the fact that running this site now takes up about half my day. But I’ve been hoarding away links like a squirrel under the acorn tree. Unfortunately no one is going to care about much besides government drama, but if you need a break there is sure to be something here to entertain and enlighten you.

PLUGS:

§ Two time Eisner nominee Zainab Akhtar has been updating Comics & Cola again, with material first published in her Patreon Newsletter. Lots of reviews, news and tidbits, all for the most discerning comics readers. Seriously, it’s only $1! What are you waiting for?

§ The MNT Newsletter is also available on Patreon, It’s the work of Steve Morris, Megan Purdy and Christian Hoffer and it’s also excellent. Also only $1. Seriously now! Is this the way forward for comics journamalism? The MNT crew announced on Twitter that they are looking to bring on another partner and expand so the empire grows…

NEWSY STUFF:

§ Cartoonist Jay Disbrow has passed away at age 91. HE had a very busy career as a ahorror artist, as this Lambiek entry shows, going all the way back to the Iger shop in the 1950s. However, for me he will be best known for the astonishing fact that a Jay Disbrow comic was the very first one ever published by Fantagraphics, namely The Flames of Gyro, a book so obscure that I could only find this tiny illo of the cover. The second book published by Fanta was Love and Rockets, so a bit of a shift there. I haven’t read the relevant passages in We Told You So, but comic legend has it that when Fantagraphics made one of its moves, they had a bonfire of copies of The Flames of Gyro from the warehouse.

Not to disparage Disbrow, there. He has a solid, imaginative style that stands out among the era’s journeymen. Joe McCulloch has more on all this in a column from 2013.

§ Former New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff has a new job editing cartoons at Esquire, which is surprising because it suggests that he didn’t leave the New Yorker altogether voluntarily. But he’ll be busy with his new gig:

According to Hearst, Mankoff will be responsible for “reviving the decades-long tradition of cartoons in Esquire, which numbers more than 13,000 cartoons and dates back to the 1930s when they were published regularly until the early 1970s.” He will edit humor stories, pitch ideas, draft cartoons and recruit a new generation of humorists to Esquire and Esquire.com. He will also find ways for the magazine to make its original cartoons available for prints and licensing. “Bob is one of the funniest, most creative people I know,” said Esquire editor in chief Jay Fielden. “What he’s going to do is invent an entirely new look and sensibility in cartooning by upping the aesthetics and embracing a wide set of fresh voices. ‘La La Land’ proved an old form can become a new sensation. That’s the ambition here.”

If nothing else, Esquire may become an outlet for cartoonist to sell cartoons for money, a rare thing these days. Also rare, reading a print magazine.

§ Todd McFarlane made a little video saying he’d finished a script for a new Spawn movie. He’s been threatening a new Spawn movie for a long time but this time he has a script and even showed a page although it didn’t have any scary Spawn stuff on it. The script is too long but he’s already had 14 interested parties. “The script is done; no more talk,” he promises.

Will there ever be another Spawn movie? The franchise seems pretty ice cold right now, but ya never know. McFarlane hopes to have more to say at San Diego.

§ While I was on deadline the potential WGA strike was averted, which is wonderful because it would have messed up everything. With streaming going full blast, Hollywood just couldn’t have afforded a work stoppage and it sounds like the writer’s got a decentish deal. Also had there been a strike, comis would have been flooded with film and tv writers “on break” and that would have been awkward.

§ Also, they finally made it official that Pitch got cancelled so those 10 episode about Ginny Baker the first female major league pitcher will be all there is. I loved this show, but then I would. It is certainly the best baseball tv show of all times, better than Bay City Blues or Ball Four. It really should have been an HBO show, not a network show. Oh well.

“Don’t send me death threats, because I will…I’m gonna report all that s–t to the cops. I’m just sick of it. You can hate Eugene, I don’t care. I’ll argue that you’re wrong, but you can think whatever you want. But when you start saying you hope I die, I don’t know if you’re talking about Josh or Eugene. I gotta report that s–t,” he said on Facebook Live.

“So just don’t be an a–hole. And then…stop complaining. Let’s just stop complaining about everything on the internet. OK. Seriously. Go spend time with your family or friends or loved ones. Just get off the internet. Is there anything else? Other than I love you? I do. I love you guys.”

The abuse was pretty gross but it didn’t lead to endless op-eds, probably because the victim was a well-off white male actor. It does suggest to me that some of the offensive trolls on social media are motivated just by the fact they’re shitty people and not picking on any particular group, although god knows, women and POCs get a lot more abuse on social media just for existing. Social media is wonderful, isn’t it?

§ Sarah Glidden has a newsletter and she made the latest one in the form of a comic and it’s so cool. You may be able to see it in this link.

INTERVIEWS:

§ Here’s a brief interview with the always busy Spike Trotman, which reveals she not only can run her own publishing empire, but make her own kim chi for lunch. I feel so inadequate now.

Greg: You’re a successful publisher of your own work, anthologies, and you’ve even branched out to begin publishing books by other creators, including the award-winning TJ and Amal. So tell us: what did you have for lunch today? Spike: (Laughs) Actually I have it right here! I made scallion pork sung scallion pancakes–pork sung if you don’t know is dried sweetened and shredded pork that’s usually used as a rice topping–I mixed it in with the scallion pancake and fried it. I’m having with that some rice with furukake which is Japanese-style rice seasoning. That, topped with kimchi–which is homemade, thank you–and the accompanying vegetable is just a dressed simple tossed salad.

It definitely did expand the channels that we were in. The mass retailers started taking the titles. Some mass retailers that we’d never worked with before were interested in taking the Pokemon volumes. Some of that has translated to sales of other titles, and some of it hasn’t. When you’re talking about moving into mass market channels, the property needs to be of a certain size. It’s not like they’re going to go back and take a small indie manga after that. It definitely expanded our channels. We’re still writing that.

Segura said he also loved reading crime novels as a kid and later “as a hobby, and a respite” from his duties in publicity, and he eventually tried his hand at writing them. His books, he said, are inspired by the works of such crime novelists as Lawrence Block, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, and George Pelecanos,—“writers who create imperfect characters in a strong setting.”
“I started trying to write about a private eye based in Miami, and I just pecked away at the story in my spare time,” Segura said. “I also started going to crime conventions, like BoucherCon,” the annual crime and mystery convention. He met Pinter during one of those BoucherCon visits. “I wrote one novel and then another, and it became its own thing,” he added.

Nick Dragotta: When I was coming up in comics there was a grant called the Xeric started by Peter Laird of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” I can remember trying to get one back in the late ’90s. I didn’t receive one, but the 15 or so submission pages I drew for the Xeric Grant led to my first comic job at Marvel. It was a very useful experience, and that opportunity led to another. Cut to 2015, Image was still in the Bay Area where I live, and David and I would occasionally hang out, grab lunch. Our conversations would stray into the business of comics and how it could be improved, it just started formulating from there. We really just jumped in. We wrote a letter to our peers, and with Eric Stephenson’s blessing, sent it out. The idea was to set up a nonprofit that would be funded and run by creators. No one owns it, a volunteer entity that helps promote new and original works.

CONVENTIONS:

§ I have a huge backlog of convention news. I could just run a website about conventions and the drama therein. From the Fyre Festival to the con that got cancelled by the shady hotel to autographs with dogs to the show runner who killed a man in self defense.

Knox cites the inflated pricetags for Coachella (starting at $600 but with packages available that cost as much as $8,500) and Bonaroo ($1650 for VIP tickets, but only sold in blocks of two, with premium experiences as high as $7,000). Have you priced out a trip to SxSW lately? And let’s not even talk about what it costs to take a family of four to a regular-season major league sporting event, much less a playoff game. It’s all enough to make the cost of a four-day badge to one of North America’s big comic or gaming festivals seem like a bargain, even with hotels and airfare. There’s a reason why SDCC, NYCC, PAX and other fan events sell out in a matter of seconds and scrambles like last week’s “Hoteloween” – the annual stress-fest to book a hotel for SDCC – are now traditions. That’s what happens when demand exceeds supply. It’s a signal to the market that prices are too low.

Very true!

§ Speaking of Hoteloween, I didn’t give a blow by blow account this year, but it was a bit of a trail of tears, with ressie notifications going out in two batches a week apart. And those who got NOTHING, NOTHING I tell you, haven’t even gotten that OnPeak Dear John letter yet.

Don’t worry about the Beat, a backup plan was put into motion, but this year’s random lottery seems to have been a RANDOMIZED random lottery as when you got into the queue and when you posted your finished list seem to have had little to do with what you got. The Unofficial SDCC BLog has all the tweet sleuthing here. And here’s the annual editorial: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Hotelpocalypse? While there is no solution – 120,00 people for 12,000 downtown hotel rooms – Kerry Dixon mused over the possibility of live picking of rooms, while rejecting that as unfeasible – although that’s how we USED to do it, hence the tradition of being first in line and frantically picking hotels, although it doens’t matter any more. She also suggests this rather intriguing idea:

There’s really no reason why the randomization needs to happen on the front end, though. Why not simply open the form up for a period of time – say, somewhere between 2-24 hours – and state up front that it doesn’t matter what time you fill out the form, because it’s all going to be randomized on the back end later. There would no longer be a need for a waiting room to funnel people through, because it wouldn’t matter if you refresh at 9AM on the dot, so thousands of attendees wouldn’t be overloading the form all at once. Instead, while it’s certainly stressful waiting to see what hotel you got — it takes some of the tension out of the process.

I think this would ultimately be even more frustrating since it takes away the ILLUSION of being first in line. There really is no solution except a dozen more hotels or the con getting really crappy. And I don’t se either of those happening.

§ In case you’re thinking AirBnB, don’t. I checked and whole apts go for about $1000 a night. Which might be good if you have a big group but if I tried to arrange that I would just die.

COMICS:

§ This link cataloging David Mazzucchelli’s various Short Stories in Various Anthologies, 1991–2013 has been making the rounds. Mazzucchelli seems to be about as interested in reprinting these as he is in doing interviews – I asked him about an interview for a friend at MoCCA and he looked like I’d just asked if he’d like to run with the bulls in Pamplona wearing cement overshoes – so this list will just stoke your over priced back issue haunting.

COMMENTARY, REVIEWS, ETC.

§ I’ve only seen the first episode of American Gods but I was wondering how it would land considering that it was written at the turn of the century, when a white author having a POC main character was seen as a step forward, whereas now we have a bit more nuanced approach to such things. Black Girl Nerd’s Jonita Davis looked at American Gods and the Realities of Race and gives some insights on this.

Even considering this donation an act of true, individual generosity, why is Perlmutter speaking privately to Trump about veterans issues, and not the prevention of the loss of healthcare to so many Americans being fought for and, on the fourth of May, won by the Republicans of the Trump administration? His own status as a veteran is accepted, though hard to verify for myself owing to a combination of his strict personal privacy and his service being with the Israeli Army. It’s widely supposed that he participated in 1967’s Six Day War and emigrated to America that same year, aged twenty-four. Having been an ex-military veteran for fifty years now Perlmutter surely has a lot of experience hours racked up, but one must wonder if the experience of an individual with rare gall and hustle who grew into a billionaire over the second half of the last century can be analogous to the concerns of the average veteran in 2017.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

A still from Very Semi Serious, the documentary about Robert Mankoff and The New Yorker

In seismic news that received little coverage in the mainstream comics news press, Robert Mankoff is stepping down as cartoon editor of The New Yorker. He will be replaced by Emma Allen, a New Yorker staffer who has a background in art writing but is not a cartoonist herself.

Mankoff, a cartoonist himself, was the cartoon editor for The New Yorker for 20 years, succeeding Lee Lorenz, another cartoonist/editor hyphenate who had a 20 year run. Together they upheld the legacy of subtle, nearly ephemeral humor that somehow defined contemporary life while existing at the edges of it.

This distinctive but impossible to capture humor will now be the provenance of the little known Allen, 27. I’m told she is friendly with younger staffers and cartoonists, including assistant cartoon editor Colin Stokes. Given her youth and Mankoff’s long tenure, older cartoonists are probably feeling a little uneasy today; however The New Yorker has always been a mix of the new and the classic, and Allen has Mankoff’s full endorsement.

At his Inkspill blog, Michael Maslin has excerpts from the various memos that went around yesterday when the change was announced:

The person I’ve chosen to be the next cartoon editor is Emma Allen, who has worked in recent years an editor of The Talk of the Town, a writer, and the driving force behind Daily Shouts, which is one of the best features of newyorker.com. Unlike Bob and Lee, she is not a cartoonist, but then neither was James Geraghty, who did the job before Lee. (Hell, William Shawn was not a writer, either, and he wasn’t too bad in the editing department.) Emma has a terrific eye for talent, knows the history of cartooning deeply, and is an immensely energetic and intelligent and sympathetic editor. She will work with Colin Stokes on selecting cartoons, running the caption contest, and creating a bigger digital footprint for cartoons. I am quite sure that we have only just begun to figure out new ways to explore and exploit digital technologies as a way to distribute your work to more and new readers. All of this is intended to stake out a healthy future for cartoons at The New Yorker.

The Times and Michael Cavna have additional reports on the move and quotes from Mankoff. In a statement he wrote:

“My greatest gratitude goes to the cartoonists. I know how much easier it is to pick a good cartoon than do one, much less the many thousands they have done and will continue to do,” Mankoff said. “And, continue they will, with Emma Allen who now takes over this most iconic of all New Yorker features. I wish her and them the best of luck. And me, too—I’ve got to find that old cartoon pen of mine.”

Mankoff was the subject of a truly delightful documentary called Very Semi Serious, which covered the whole arcane New Yorker cartoon process in detail. He also moved The NEw Yorker definitively into the modern era, introducing such things as The Cartoon Bank, a paid archive of the cartoons; moving them into the digital age (I recall seeing Mankoff at SPX wearing Google Glasses a few years ago) and hiring more women and diverse cartoonists. All while keeping the tone as mysteriously amusing as ever. HE’s definitely a major figure in modern cartooning.

He’ll continue to work with The New Yorker, including finishing the ambitious book The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

§ Rat Queens artist and co-creator Roc Upchurch was arrested last month on charges of assault and battery against his wife, who posted an account on a blog and then removed it. It’s a sad familiar tale, but hasn’t gotten that much attention among comics folk. Sometimes we just don’t know what to do when one of our own transgresses. Women Write About Comics’ Megan Purdy also received information about the assult and the arrest and offers some very important perspective:

Many have suggested that the arrest is a private matter, and that his ex-wife’s more extensive allegations have the potential to ruin Upchurch’s career. But domestic violence is not a private matter — it’s a criminal one — and rare is the man’s career that has been ruined by it. Upchurch stands to lose little from our merely speaking about an arrest that hasn’t been further pursued. Rat Queens, remember, is a creator-owned book published by Image, and it has been hailed as a breath of fresh air, a genuinely and breezily feminist comic, around which Kurt Wiebe and Upchurch have been a vibrant and supportive community. That community is unlikely to suddenly disappear in the wake of this news. Some readers may stand to lose more, though, should we shy from reporting the matter honestly — they may lose whatever sense of safety and trust they have found among us.

We must not shy away from reporting unpleasant facts.

We must not cultivate a culture of silence and polite withdrawal.

As I said, there is often foot shuffling about these matters, but bringing them to light is often the surest way to begin recovery for all involved.

Anyway, Eric Stephenson was concerned that we might be limiting our audience with this kind of cover, and we had a lot of back and forth with him until he finally said, “You guys know I’m not your boss, right? You can do anything you want at Image, I just wanted you to be aware of the climate out there.” Which is one of the countless reasons why Image is the best publisher in the world. And to Eric’s credit, as soon as he saw Fiona’s gorgeous execution of our cover idea, his response was the same as mine: “However many of these we print, it’s not gonna be enough.”

Thankfully, retailers have been equally supportive, and we haven’t had a single complaint. Sounds like one national book chain is even going to feature the hardcover at the front of their stores for the holiday season, so we’re enormously grateful for everybody’s approval of horned babies and milk-engorged boobs.

§ Did you know that New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff stars in a video series called The Cartoon Lounge? In the above episode Mankoff fiddles with his gizmos.

The symbol of the bat has a long history with Valencia that dates back to the 13th century when the region was conquered by King James I of Aragon who added the image of the bat to his coat of arms as a symbol of good luck. Bats are common in the region of Valencia and the Balearic Islands and the coat of arms of the city of Valencia still features a bat.

Perhaps DC should send Bruce Wayne to team up with these guys instead—it seems they are all on the same side.

Rounding out the cast is an ensemble of season television and film actors, The Hollywood Reporter notes, many of whom who have starred in recent television hits. The cast include Patrick Fugit (Gone Girl), Philip Glenister (Big School), Reg E. Cathy (House of Cards), Julia Crockett (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Wrenn Schmidt (Boardwalk Empire, and Kip Pardue (Ray Donovan).

§ Acclaimed cartoonist Kevin Huizengahas updated his activities. Haven’t really seen much from him of late which is sad, but Ganges will continue with a new issue out next spring. YAY.

That issue is…the title, and in many ways the thesis of the book, are misleading. Lepore presents the Marston family history of polyamory, and therefore the connection between Wonder Woman creator William Marston and his lover Olive Byrne’s aunt Margaret Sanger, as unknown. If this was the first book you’d ever read about Marston and Wonder Woman, I think you’d come away with the impression that Lepore is the first one to reveal that Marston and his wife Elizabeth lived in a polyamorous relationship with another woman (Olive Byrne).

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.